Glitch
by silverwolf-fox
Summary: While hunting down a glitched machines (beasts whose code got scrambled after activating the master override), Aloy comes across a man in the mountains, shares his campfire, and learns that he's somehow never seen a machine before. (Background Aloy/Nil)


**I needed this crossover to exist, even if it is just a quick piece like this to introduce the idea.**

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Icy winds bit at Aloy's cheeks as she climbed the snowy mountainside. Even the fur clothing she'd obtained from the Banuk in Song's Edge couldn't keep out the worst of the chill. Her legs fought to trudge through the heavy snow, and for a moment she wished she was back in sunny Meridian.

A very brief moment.

Thanks to Varl's insistence, the Nora no longer bowed at her feet, but there was no stopping the Carja from forcing their praises onto her once word of HADES' defeat spread. The city had become unbearable, and Aloy made it through one day of what was meant to be a week long celebration before sneaking out into the Jewel region. It was only a few days later she found out that someone was tracking her, and there was an unusual sense of relief when it turned out to be her bandit-hunting friend, Nil.

Nil. Just thinking his name summoned a strange mixture of affection and frustration. The man had no interest in worshiping her like a goddess, and he appeared from the brush and simply asked her to join him on a hunting trip. It really shouldn't have been surprising that he led her to a bandit camp, and while part of Aloy wanted to roll her eyes at the bandits acting as if the world hadn't almost ended, she was too excited for the dose of normalcy she desperately needed after dealing with Eclipse, Helis, and HADES.

Neither particularly wanted to return to the crowds of Meridian, so Aloy and Nil decided to travel together and went East. It was nearly two months after that that they found their first glitched machine, a strider without a herd in sight. Each movement it made was sharp and uncoordinated as if it didn't know how to walk properly. Scanning it with her focus, Aloy discovered that when she had activated the master override, a small percentage of machines glitched. They weren't dangerous per se, not like a corrupted machine was, but they couldn't perform their designated task and didn't follow any recognizable pattern of movement so they tended to wander beyond where they normally would be able to and act erratically.

Which is what led Aloy onto this freezing mountainside. Manually overriding the glitched machines with her spear allowed her to correct the issue, and while purposefully trying to seek them out would be useless, she promised herself that she'd fix whatever glitched machine she came across. Unfortunately, her latest find was a glinthawk jerking itself through the air, and she couldn't just shoot it out of the sky, as that would defeat the purpose of trying to correct its issue. When it headed up a snowy mountain, Aloy and Nil split ways. She'd be able to track it faster in the inclement weather by herself, but they promised to find the other afterward.

The sun was starting to set with snow falling heavier, and Aloy cursed when she checked the focus only for the glinthawk to have escaped beyond its range. There was no point trying to search for it in the dark. She'd have to wait and hope to catch sight of it in the morning, which left her the issue of finding a place to camp. Rounding an ice covered rock formation, Aloy gasped quietly when she thought she saw a flicker of orange light up ahead. Not the harsh orange of an alert machine, but of a fire.

According to the focus, there was only one other person in its vicinity, and that was a chance Aloy was ready to take if it got her out of the oncoming snowstorm. She managed to kill a fox on the way for dinner and as a possible bribe for whoever was already holed up there.

The instant she reached the mouth of the cave, an arrow was aimed in her direction. Aloy showed her hands, one still clutching the tail of her prey, and quickly said, "I'm not here for trouble. Just looking for a place out of the snow."

The man's eyes narrowed, and he was clearly leaning towards telling her to get out.

Aloy lightly shook the fox, flakes of snow fluttering down from its fur, and offered, "I have dinner."

Slowly, too slowly, he eased the tension off his bow and lowered it. Sighing in relief, Aloy entered. The cave was wider than it was tall, so she had to hunch a bit inside but was able to comfortably sit against the wall opposite him, the fire in between them. Her weapons were set to the side but close enough to grab, just as his were, but she took out a knife and started skinning the fox she caught.

As she did, her eyes wandered to the man across from her. She didn't know of any tribe that wore furs and lived this far North except the Banuk, though with their access to dyes, she'd never seen one dressed in plain shades of gray and brown. Dark hair was pulled away from a handsome, though not classically so, face, but there were no braids that might've revealed him to be an exiled Nora. He certainly didn't look like a Carja, with no noticeable tattoos or face paint. Instead, scars curved around his eyes, too symmetrical to be anything but purposeful, but she didn't know of any tribe that had such a barbaric tradition. A small sect of Oseram, perhaps? The Tenakth would be a strong possibility despite living in the southern reaches of the Sundom.

She could feel his gaze as he gave her the same scrutiny. Focusing on her task, Aloy set aside the fox pelt, planning to clean and use it later, and prepared the meat to cook. The two sat in silence but for the crackling of the fire and while normally this would perfectly acceptable, she felt it would be polite to at least introduce herself. "My name's Aloy."

Instead of replying, the man grunted, doing no more than acknowledging that he heard her. She huffed and muttered, "Okay, then." Now the silence felt stifling, and Aloy found herself missing Nil's easy way of conversing, despite how disturbed most of what he said happened to be.

Eventually, he gave in and said, "Roan," before reaching for the cooked meat. They both ate, appreciating the warm food after the cold outside, and surprisingly Roan initiated the conversation. "What are you doing this far into Azgeda territory?" His question came across more like a demand.

"I'm hunting a glinthawk." He looked confused, and Aloy assumed that his people must have a different name for the various machines and expounded, "It's one of the flying machines." Before he could inquire further, Aloy asked curiously, "Is Azgeda your tribe?"

"My clan," he confirmed. "And yourself?"

A loaded question considering her feelings regarding how she and Rost had been treated over the years, but she conceded, "I'm from the Nora." She did win the Proving, after all, and Rost would want her to take pride in being accepted into the tribe.

Wind howled outside while they both regarded each other thoughtfully. When dinner was finished, Aloy took the fox bones and started to clean them alongside the pelt, though she planned to wait until later before crafting anything with them. Her companion was silent, but she could feel his wary gaze on her and it hardened when she pulled out her ropecaster.

Knowing that neither of them would feel comfortable enough in the presence of a stranger to sleep, Aloy chose to spend time reloading the weapon so it'd be ready for the next day. Roan's eyes dropped, curious about the strange device she was looping rope into.

When Aloy noticed the direction of his stare, she stifled a smirk and asked, "Have you ever used a ropecaster before?"

He grunted. "How does it work?" Aloy smiled and adjusted the weapon in her lap before launching into a brief explanation of what it does. She'd gotten it from the Lodge and was more than a little proud of the personal modifications she had made. After a moment's hesitation, she offered to pass it over to him for a closer look. It wasn't inherently dangerous, especially in the amateur's hands, so it wasn't a big deal to let him hold it, not like if it was her lance or stormslinger.

Once Roan returned the ropecaster and Aloy resumed preparing it to continue her hunt, conversation was inconsistent throughout the night. While he had an obvious preference for remaining silent, spending most of her life as an outcast had left Aloy rather pathetic at small talk that wasn't being led by someone else.

Most of the silence was filled by the crackling fire and wind outside that had slowed to a whisper. As expected, neither of them slept, but a night without sleep was nothing new to the Nora warrior and even Roan didn't seem any worse for wear by the time light peeking through the trees signified the dawn.

Eager to get going, Aloy strapped on her gear and gave a small nod to her new acquaintance. "Thank you for sharing your campsite."

"You brought the food," he replied, and with his even tone, she couldn't figure out if he was trying to be funny or not. Instead, Aloy's lips lifted into a half-smile.

"Goodbye," she said simply before turning to leave.

Only a few minutes out of the cave, and Aloy heard the familiar robotic screech of a glinthawk. Running in the direction it came from, she had the ropecaster at the ready. She caught a glimpse of it through the tree branches and grumbled while heading to a spot with a clearer view. Because of the glitch, it's flight was erratic and impossible to predict, so she was forced to guess at where it would be and wasted more rope than she'd have preferred.

It took five shots before she got lucky, and the glinthawk was pulled to the ground nearby. Breathing out a sigh of relief now that the difficult part was done, Aloy pressed the end of her lance to the glitched machine and began to manually override it.

"So that's a glinthawk."

The voice startled Aloy, and she cursed herself for not realizing that she was being followed. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Roan casually leaning against a tree, though by the set of his shoulders and the hand hanging a hair too close to his knife made it clear that he was more than ready to fight if necessary. His attention was focused on the machine beside her.

"You haven't seen one before?" Aloy asked curiously. While it'd be reasonable for someone in a village far from any glinthawk territories, for someone who seemed as well travelled as Roan, it was odd for him not to have come across the flying beasts before.

He was quiet for a moment before telling her, "There's nothing like that anywhere near here." Before she could comment on the abnormality of that, wanting to question him on where's from and how they keep machines away, a whirring noise snagged her attention. The override finished, Aloy turned her back to Roan and freed the machine from the ropes that held it down. From the moment it was unleashed, it was obviously doing much better, smooth movements flapping its wings as it immediately started flying back to where it originally came from.

"With the code repaired, it'll fly back to its normal patrol route and shouldn't stray again." Her words were meant as a comfort - no one wanted machines so close - but there was a slight furrow to Roan's brow as if he didn't understand. "It's going home," she clarified and received a narrow-eyed glare in return for her slightly sardonic tone.

"Is it a danger to my people?" Roan asked, his head turned in the direction that the glinthawk had vanished.

"I don't think so," she admitted. "As long as nothing attacks it, it's priority should be to return to its own territory."

Roan hummed thoughtfully. "Are there more like it?"

Aloy shrugged. "Sure." She shouldered her ropecaster and shot him a tired look. "Well I have someone waiting for me, and it's not usually a good idea to leave him to own devices for too long."

"Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim, Aloy," he said, not bothering to wait for a reply before heading off. A small part of her was glad it wasn't in the same direction she'd be going, and another was busy being confused by his unusual words.

"Uh, goodbye?" she said uselessly to his back.

The trip out of the mountains was faster since she didn't have to keep an eye out for a glitched glinthawk. Thankfully, tracking down Nil should be far easier. All she needed to do was find the closest bandit hideout, where he'd be lying back in the grass of a nearby hill waiting for her.

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**Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim. = May we meet again.**


End file.
